Diary of a Shopkeeper, 2nd July

My wine-buying trip to Spain meant I missed St Magnus International Festival almost entirely. Happily, I did make it to a memorable event on the final evening. ‘Waves and Tangles’ was a foy celebrating the life and writing of Bessie Grieve, whose centenary year this is. Born in Shapinsay in June 1923, she’ll be remembered by many readers of this paper by her birth name, Bessie Skea. More still will remember her as ‘Countrywoman’, whose diary ran in these pages from 1961 to shortly before her death in 1996.

The foy, a collection of excerpts from her columns, poems, and songs, was compiled and directed by her grand-daughter, Sarah Jane Gibbon. It must have been a challenging task to choose from nearly four decades of writing. The performers too were linked to Skea, either by family ties, or by friendship, or shared Shapinsay origins. They did her proud.

A direct link to Skea was provided by a fascinating display of photos, books, and mementoes. One item that particularly caught my eye was an old, powder-blue Brother De Luxe typewriter. Of sixties vintage, by the look of it, the worn keys and numerous small scratches and bashes testified to the tens of thousands of words tapped out on it.

To be exact it wasn’t the typewriter that caught my eye but the piece of paper in the roller, which seemed to be a ‘letter to the editor,’ signed ‘J. Bessie Grieve.’ It was a remarkably forthright statement of a political point of view. A long way from the carefully observed nature notes her columns usually consisted of.

I asked another of Skea’s grand-daughters, Emma Grieve, a noted poet herself, whether the letter had been published, and if so where. She replied that it was found amongst Bessie’s papers when she died, and no one was sure whether it had been published or not. It deserves to be. I’ll quote a couple of lines:

‘Do any Orcadians ever write to your paper?’ was a query among last week’s letters. Occasionally one or two do; but I think I can tell the writer why, as a race, Orcadians are so reluctant to put pen to paper. It is because of a vast, and entirely unjustified, insular inferiority complex, inherited from the days of the lairds and their worthy predecessors, the Stewart earls.

That seemingly complimentary word ‘worthy’ fairly drips with sarcasm!

Centuries of oppression, instilled in Orcadian minds a conviction that anyone with a Southern accent was gentry, and therefore to be listened to without contradiction, under fear of eviction, at least.

The letter is undated, but even if it was written in the final years of Skea’s life, it would be 30 years old. I think it’s safe to say that things have moved on since then. For one thing the mix of accents here is much greater than at any time in Orkney’s history – except perhaps for during the two world wars. It’s certainly not a case any more of a large majority of Orcadian accents and a few ‘gentry’ voices, laying down the law. What’s more, Orcadians surely have a good deal more cultural and political self-confidence than they did even 50 years ago. To a large degree that is down to writers like Bessie Skea, as well as George Mackay Brown, CM Costie, Ernest Marwick and WPL Thomson.

As I write, the most read story on the BBC news website has the intriguing headline, ‘Orkney council to look at proposals to become territory of Norway.’ The story itself quotes James Stockan at length, outlining more nuanced ideas than the clickbait headline suggests. I have no idea what Bessie Skea would think of the council’s motion to investigate ‘alternative forms of governance.’ But if it means we’re getting over our ‘insular inferiority complex’ it can only be a good thing.

You might be able to see in the photo that Skea’s typescript actually says ‘the Stuart earls.’ I have silently corrected her typo to Stewart.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 5th July 2023. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.